AUTHOR(S) ANNOUNCEMENT!
- Laura Cathcart
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
MAGDA O'TOOLE - THE MUMMERS
"When Milo’s brother returns from the summer festival entirely changed, he must face the realization that the traditions of his local village are not what they seem."
The Mummers is a piece born from O'Toole's fascination with the folk genre; full of history and roots embedded in the culture of the British Isles, and a propensity for the uncanny. A dizzying slice of folk horror.
Magda O’Toole is a writer specialising in horror, from the North West
of England. She released her first horror anthology ‘Sickle and Bone’ in October, 2024. Her debut novel ‘The Rushes’, a haunting love-letter to silent cinema, is due for release in January 2026.
Taken with folklore, religious horror, nautical cryptids and tales of early modern devils and poltergeists, Magda loves to inject a historical setting into her tales, where she can.
Raised by a single mother, heavy metal and Anne Rice paperbacks, Magda enjoys movie marathons and procrastinating with her hamster, Reggie.
STEPHEN HOWARD - AN INVINCIBLE SUMMER
"When Ruby draws the unwanted attention of his colony’s system authorities, a strange stumble into a wonderful dream world promises to shatter every illusion of his reality."
Influenced by the works of Murakami, Ishiguro, and Orwell, this tale of a distant utopia tackles themes of depression, authoritarianism, and externalism.
Stephen Howard (he/him) is an English novelist and short story writer from Manchester, now living in Cheshire with his wife, Rachel, and their daughter, Flo. An English Literature and Creative Writing graduate from the Open University, his work has been published by Lost Boys Press, The No Sleep Podcast, Factor Four Magazine, Metastellar, and others. He’s also published the comic fantasy novel, Beyond Misty Mountain, and the collections Condemned To Be, Little Book of Horrors: Volume I, and Ophelia in the Underworld and Other Melancholy Tales (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). A horror novella, This House Isn’t Haunted But We Are, was published by Wild Hunt Books in 2025.
MORGAN BLADES - WORM HILL
"...as the bodies pile up, Lamb starts to realize there’s something very wrong crawling under the skin of County Durham."
A love letter to the city of Durham in the form of a modern day retelling of the ‘Lambton Worm’ myth. Set in the North-East of England, through the lens of a satirical police procedural turned folkloric, Worm Hill is a story about impurity and institutions. Eerie and dripping in local folklore, this is an uncomfortable read, designed to leave you feeling uneasy.
Morgan Blades is an author living in the North East of England. On purpose. They enjoy writing about folklore, horror, fantasy, and the future. When they grow up, they would like to be either Kurt Vonnegurt, Ursula Le Guin, or at least Alan Moore but that hasn’t seemed to happen yet.
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